We were busy in the garden this weekend

We had quite a pleasant weekend, weather-wise.  Just one very heavy shower that seemed to centre over Tupton.  It didn't reach up into Grassmoor, which is under a mile away and which was bone dry when we passed through shortly after the shower!  I realise that it's been drizzling on and off for the past fortnight or so - but we still haven't had a great deal of rain. The ground is still quite dry and the water butts are not as full as we might have expected them to be.

We have weeded the beds with the cucurbits. The pumpkin has a small pumpkin growing, and there are a few more female flowers.  There are also a good number of bees, butterflies and hoverflies so I am hopeful the fruits will be pollinated.  There are a few minute cucumbers on the cucumber plant - although the first one got eaten away by something.  I have put a couple of bamboo canes around it and am encouraging it to climb up some string.  I've also done this to the squash in the other corner.  Although it doesn't seem to be flowering at all!  We've mulched the bed with lawn clippings.

We ran out of lawn clippings and dipped into the chooks' straw.  Then we remembered the mound of grass clippings from last year, tucked in the corner of the orchard but buried under all the weeds, rubbish, nettles and wotnots that grow over there.  This year the hens have been keeping it down and we can actually reach the mound.  The Under-Gardener went with the wheelbarrow to get some.  And we found that under the surface we have lots of lovely humus, which we will put on top of the compost heap in due course.

Chooky Sunday Smorgasbord

In the meantime, the chickens thought we had opened up a smorgasbord just for them and had a wonderful afternoon scratching about where the grass mound had been, plucking out grubs and caterpillars and slugs and insects and baby bees and all sorts of things.  The Under Gardener also gave them some of the now ripening ears of corn and wheat that have been growing uninvited in the flower beds.  They thought they were wonderful too.  They did not get their usual early evening Blue Bowl of Supper Snacks yesterday afternoon!!!!!

We had an early picking of (small!) runner beans. The chard is beginning to grow well. And the cabbages and other brassicas that we planted where the peas and broad beans had been are starting to settle in nicely. The grapevine is going great guns

I really think we might even get some Brussels sprouts from the plants that have been in since last autumn, probably in time for Christmas!!!

I have cleared around the red rose by the pond. We can now see it - and I have dead-headed it (at long last!).  I was quite startled to find an ENORMOUS caterpillar while I was in there.  For a brief moment I thought it was a lizard!

I believe it is the caterpillar of the Elephant Hawk moth. 

 

Up on the allotment, the potatoes are going great guns and the tomatoes and pepper plant in the greenhouse are doing really well.  On the other hand, the onions did not enjoy the very dry spring and early summer and have not flourished.  The under Gardener has been pulling them and putting them into sacks.  But I think it will be better if we prep them and put them in the freezer.  They don't look to me as though they will keep over the winter.  Oh - and that cucurbit that appeared uninvited by the pepper plant looks very much as though it might be a patty pan squash.  It only has one fruit on so far and is growing extremely vigorously. I am hopeful that we might get a few more fruits.

We are preparing the middle bit of the allotment to be divided off from all the vegetable plots. Then we will plant fruit trees and bushes in the larger sub-division and use the smaller sub-division as a utility area and put a little shed there, and a proper compost heap.  At the moment the remains of the dung heap are there.  The bed where the dung heap was is going to be dug over, probably in the autumn.

We've sorted out the salad boxes, de-slugged and snailed them, planted up new ones and moved them all to the house side of the driveway.

Now we just need to sort out the front porch-without-a-roof and the flower garden and we'll be getting somewhere!